Selection of Exterior Wall System and MCDM Derived Decision

Abstract

In the field of construction practice, decisions regarding material selection frequently comedown to a choice based on tradition, i.e. recommendations based on the experience of theengineers hired by an employer as designers, contractors, or energy efficiency engineers.In the presented research, in addition to the Employer, technical individuals were involved inthe decision-making process. The harmonisation of Employer opinions and those of expertswere obtained through the NGT technique and Delphi based method, due to the fact that differentcriteria for a decision could represent a field of interest of an individual participant in theprocess. The result was determining the criteria, their strictness, and their weighted effect.As multi-criteria decision analysis has evolved into a powerful tool that assists decision-makersin generating "a cut above" choice in resolving specific cases and overcoming certain problemsin the architectural and construction industry, the use of the MCDM method EDAS+ in theresearch ensured an exterior wall system ranking that was not influenced by experience ormarketing.Without intending to favor any manufacturer of building materials, the research presents eightexterior wall systems belonging to different categories of core materials, all with individualfeatures, similarities, and differences.When compared to otherwise arbitrary estimates or recommendations based on experienceand the most commonly used building materials, the application of multi-criteria decisionanalysis in the case of exterior wall system selection for a particular 1938 Belgrade buildinggenerated more relevant selection results.